[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[KrayZ33]

But Ink Mage sounds fucking stupid and should not be a thing. IMO of course.

Whaaat?

Why's that.
I think the idea of creating images and giving the aether used a visual form sounds fun.

Like - the character throws a puddle of ink to his left and right and swings around his/her brush and 2 little shadowkeeper-doggos keep forming and pouncing out of it towards your target.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Ink Mage with the brush mechanic from Okami, please!

[Katchii]

But Ink Mage sounds fucking stupid and should not be a thing. IMO of course.

Whaaat?

Why's that.
I think the idea of creating images and giving the aether used a visual form sounds fun.

Like - the character throws a puddle of ink to his left and right and swings around his/her brush and 2 little shadowkeeper-doggos keep forming and pouncing out of it towards your target.

Depending on how they implement it, it would be ridiculous, or amazing...or both, kinda like BLU.

In the anime, Black Clover, there's a mage that uses paint and he's pretty OP.

https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Rill_Boismortier

Boils down to him being able to paint whatever he wants and bring it to "life." So he can use any element (in a world where mages typically only ever have access to one), create plants, animals, buildings, huge columns of fire and electricity, a wave of quicksand, a lake surrounded by wind and storm, etc... which gives him a huge tactical advantage over others in most cases.

[Haidaes]

Kinda sad that Squenix still hasn't updated their payment procedures to post 2k standards. Getting the annoying error 601 after 2 years again (because their browser script failed at any part of their 1€ validation procedure) is kind grinding my gears. /sigh

Does anyone know what happens to your retainers when your subscription runs out? I hope I won't have to fish all that rubbish out of the mail next week :/.

[Wrecktangle]

Whaaat?

Why's that.
I think the idea of creating images and giving the aether used a visual form sounds fun.

Like - the character throws a puddle of ink to his left and right and swings around his/her brush and 2 little shadowkeeper-doggos keep forming and pouncing out of it towards your target.

Depending on how they implement it, it would be ridiculous, or amazing...or both, kinda like BLU.

In the anime, Black Clover, there's a mage that uses paint and he's pretty OP.

https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Rill_Boismortier

Boils down to him being able to paint whatever he wants and bring it to "life." So he can use any element (in a world where mages typically only ever have access to one), create plants, animals, buildings, huge columns of fire and electricity, a wave of quicksand, a lake surrounded by wind and storm, etc... which gives him a huge tactical advantage over others in most cases.

It's just an archetype I don't care about at all. The thematics are cool, no doubt about that, but dear god DO NOT CALL IT INK MAGE.

[Haidaes]

Depending on how they implement it, it would be ridiculous, or amazing...or both, kinda like BLU.

In the anime, Black Clover, there's a mage that uses paint and he's pretty OP.

https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Rill_Boismortier

Boils down to him being able to paint whatever he wants and bring it to "life." So he can use any element (in a world where mages typically only ever have access to one), create plants, animals, buildings, huge columns of fire and electricity, a wave of quicksand, a lake surrounded by wind and storm, etc... which gives him a huge tactical advantage over others in most cases.

Another example would be .. Sai (?) from Naruto. Summoning creatures in that swirly art style would be kinda cool, at least from a visual perspective. There are also a few stories in novel/manga form out there about "word/caligraphy" magic users that can cheat the respective world's system by "painting" japanese symbols which usually convey more meaning than our letters. Though I wonder if they would dare to go for something like that, since they know that they have audiences that wouldn't get the japanese literature aspect of it and caligraphy can be extremely pretentious.

[Rogalicus]

Another example would be .. Sai (?) from Naruto. Summoning creatures in that swirly art style would be kinda cool, at least from a visual perspective. There are also a few stories in novel/manga form out there about "word/caligraphy" magic users that can cheat the respective world's system by "painting" japanese symbols which usually convey more meaning than our letters. Though I wonder if they would dare to go for something like that, since they know that they have audiences that wouldn't get the japanese literature aspect of it and caligraphy can be extremely pretentious.

There already was a raid fight based on paintings, it's not like the concept is novel to the world of XIV.

[Advent]

Whaaat?

Why's that.
I think the idea of creating images and giving the aether used a visual form sounds fun.

Like - the character throws a puddle of ink to his left and right and swings around his/her brush and 2 little shadowkeeper-doggos keep forming and pouncing out of it towards your target.

Sai from the Naruto anime was sooooo bad. (Which is what I visualize in this instance)

[dope_danny]

https://www.fanbyte.com/features/lea...xiv-endwalker/

Yoshi confirms that Natsuko Ishikawa is writing the main story to Endwalker just like Shadowbringers.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

https://www.fanbyte.com/features/lea...xiv-endwalker/

Yoshi confirms that Natsuko Ishikawa is writing the main story to Endwalker just like Shadowbringers.

No disrespect, but I think people (namely the FFXIV fandom on the forums and on reddit) are putting her on a pedestal, as if she was the sole reason for why Shadowbringers was great. A great script means jack all without a good everything else. It seems like people are eager to ignore the quest planners, the people who paced the quests and story flow and zone progression, the cutscene directors and animators, the voice director, and so on. That said, it is nice to get confirmation.

[Katchii]

No disrespect, but I think people (namely the FFXIV fandom on the forums and on reddit) are putting her on a pedestal, as if she was the sole reason for why Shadowbringers was great. A great script means jack all without a good everything else. It seems like people are eager to ignore the quest planners, the people who paced the quests and story flow and zone progression, the cutscene directors and animators, the voice director, and so on. That said, it is nice to get confirmation.

While true, I think your underestimating just how crucial a well written story is to create everything else you touched on. The other folks should be getting recognition too, but there's a reason she's getting so much attention. Without her, the rest of it wouldn't have happened the way it did.

[Tome]

No disrespect, but I think people (namely the FFXIV fandom on the forums and on reddit) are putting her on a pedestal, as if she was the sole reason for why Shadowbringers was great. A great script means jack all without a good everything else. It seems like people are eager to ignore the quest planners, the people who paced the quests and story flow and zone progression, the cutscene directors and animators, the voice director, and so on. That said, it is nice to get confirmation.

This tend to happen when only a small amount of people are willing/fine to be known to the public.

People put Yoshi-P on a pedestal too, but forget about the great developers around him. Because, well, we don't really know of the other developers.

[Merie]

No disrespect, but I think people (namely the FFXIV fandom on the forums and on reddit) are putting her on a pedestal, as if she was the sole reason for why Shadowbringers was great. A great script means jack all without a good everything else. It seems like people are eager to ignore the quest planners, the people who paced the quests and story flow and zone progression, the cutscene directors and animators, the voice director, and so on. That said, it is nice to get confirmation.

She's not the sole reason for ShB being good. She's the reason for the story in ShB not being the dumpster fire that passes for a story in WoW.

[Xilurm]

She's not the sole reason for ShB being good. She's the reason for the story in ShB not being the dumpster fire that passes for a story in WoW.

That would be Banri Oda. He's been the main scenario writer and the head writer in the FFXIV team since ARR. They have a team of writers though. He was working with Ishikawa this time around, but for other expansions he was working with someone else on the MSQ. Basically he's like what Metzen used to be and what Steve Danuser is now.

But SHB was different than the previous expansions in that sense because of Ishikawa, that's true. She's good at writing tragic characters and that's one of the things that made SHB so good.

I was so surprised to learn a couple of months ago that the writing department for WoW also has a big team apparently. Because how the hell do multiple people manage to make every single patch inconsistant with what happened previously?

Well, I'm pretty sure that will never happen to FFXIV anyway.

[Haidaes]

I was so surprised to learn a couple of months ago that the writing department for WoW also has a big team apparently. Because how the hell do multiple people manage to make every single patch inconsistant with what happened previously?

Well, I'm pretty sure that will never happen to FFXIV anyway.

While they have alot of writers, they come with alot of baggage. I would be very surprised if their team actually had a diverse mindset, since that is pretty much not the case for their location. Even more importantly though, WoW has always placed story second (or lower). They tailor the story to fit the random nonsense the big wigs want to see happen next, to the gameplay that they feel needs to happen next. You simply can't expect much from a story that way. Also Danuser is a muppet. Metzen wasn't god's gift to writing either (cata *cough*), but he was the closest thing to an original vision we had. The current team is another vision, and everytime people in the team changes the vision will change as well.

Lastly, it can always happen. Especially FF had it's fair share of grief, let me just remind you of the Lightning saga which they religiously stuck to despite barely anyone liking it. (well I guess the japanese might have liked to doll up lightning..)Decent writers leave to other projects, they are tasked with scenarios they aren't comfortable with, they run out of ideas, etc. Creative processes are always prone to ups and downs. I mean stormblood was quite a bit down fom heaven's ward and we can only hope that the next one will remain on the same level as Shadowbringers.

PS: Squenix really doesn't want my money it seems.. sigh. Edit: Your online presence has some serious flaws when it's easier to set up a SEPA mandate than swiping your credit card..

[Wrecktangle]

While they have alot of writers, they come with alot of baggage. I would be very surprised if their team actually had a diverse mindset, since that is pretty much not the case for their location. Even more importantly though, WoW has always placed story second (or lower). They tailor the story to fit the random nonsense the big wigs want to see happen next, to the gameplay that they feel needs to happen next. You simply can't expect much from a story that way. Also Danuser is a muppet. Metzen wasn't god's gift to writing either (cata *cough*), but he was the closest thing to an original vision we had. The current team is another vision, and everytime people in the team changes the vision will change as well.

I find it odd we suggest that a JP dev team (especially with their culture) are being praised for having a diverse mindset. They definitely put out a solid story, no doubt about that, but I'd be hard pressed to think its quality is a result of any type of diverse thinking.

While WoW's story sometimes sucks, hell even most of the time, they've gotten consistently better about it. Is it as refined as FF14's MSQ? Absolutely not, but they're taking notes slowly and over the last 2 expansions I've seen scenarios where they're CLEARLY looking at FF14 for storytelling inspiration. Just having our MC be the main focus in cutscenes and storytelling for one. They just need to fix the whole NPC models being 3x our size thing. That shit drives me crazy and kills a lot of immersion.

[Haidaes]

I find it odd we suggest that a JP dev team (especially with their culture) are being praised for having a diverse mindset. They definitely put out a solid story, no doubt about that, but I'd be hard pressed to think its quality is a result of any type of diverse thinking.

While WoW's story sometimes sucks, hell even most of the time, they've gotten consistently better about it. Is it as refined as FF14's MSQ? Absolutely not, but they're taking notes slowly and over the last 2 expansions I've seen scenarios where they're CLEARLY looking at FF14 for storytelling inspiration. Just having our MC be the main focus in cutscenes and storytelling for one. They just need to fix the whole NPC models being 3x our size thing. That shit drives me crazy and kills a lot of immersion.

Oh I'm not saying they are diverse compared to Blizz (though the whole gaming/nerd culture there is choke full of what would be considered deviants, so it's the closest thing in an asian country you might find), I'm saying that Blizzard's writers may be many, but it doesn't really help if they all come with the same mindset of a californian hipster nerd.

Also you are right they try to improve the presentation and personally I would argue that they actually have the better means to convey story than FFXIV. FFXIV is incredibly limited as far as conveying dialogue is concerned. The "engine" in general is the textbook definition of limited. So I personally find it actually sad that FFXIV manages to convey simple emotions with the very limited animations better than what Blizzard does with their attempts that make all the character look like their jaws constant unhinge while talking and gesticulating like they have a stroke right now. The size thing is an issue as well, especially now that they have the option to phase out other players that get too close to the NPC. That should be adapted as the standard means to keep NPC interactions immersive. As for the writing though, while they may have finally started to acknowledge the player character ingame, the way they tell the story and what kind of stories they tell still leaves alot to be desired. They also lack alot when it comes to underline scenes with the right music. FFXIV is downright manipulative in that regard, but it works better than always playing EpIc wArDrUmS #213412.

Then again, the audience that plays WoW doesn't give a toss about the story even for the rare occasions when it's good. So it's pearls before the swine anyway.

Edit: Btw whenever I see your name I have to think about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppjK4VIORdc&t :P

[KrayZ33]

I find it odd we suggest that a JP dev team (especially with their culture) are being praised for having a diverse mindset. They definitely put out a solid story, no doubt about that, but I'd be hard pressed to think its quality is a result of any type of diverse thinking.

While WoW's story sometimes sucks, hell even most of the time, they've gotten consistently better about it. Is it as refined as FF14's MSQ? Absolutely not, but they're taking notes slowly and over the last 2 expansions I've seen scenarios where they're CLEARLY looking at FF14 for storytelling inspiration. Just having our MC be the main focus in cutscenes and storytelling for one. They just need to fix the whole NPC models being 3x our size thing. That shit drives me crazy and kills a lot of immersion.

How or where do you see that? Because I really can't. What are you looking at in specific?
I really can't say anything good about how WoW is being handled when it comes to story, storytelling or presentation. I'm not blaming only the writers for that, but also the game.
But even if I try to focus on the writing I can't really find a lot of "good" things that would make me say "they improved in the last 2 years".

In fact I actually think it got worse, especially in SL.
The Kyrian stuff must be one of, if not *the* worst parts people had to suffer through in terms of storytelling/presentation and even the covenant story itself is extremely one dimensional from what I could tell before I just couldn't take it anymore and switched.
The whole covenant is a big fat joke. The new patch trailer basically confirms it.
Thankfully, the others aren't that bad.

I don't know about the books and I like the cinematic trailers prior to each expansion and stuff.
But ingame? It's always pretty much a big mess. They haven't managed to tell a story ingame properly since forever. Everything is always extremely anticlimatic. Again, this is probably the games fault too but that just goes hand in hand.
For example, I can't say the whole maw thing was even remotely interesting and the presentation was an utter failure in my opinion.
Absolutely nothing during the whole prologue was even remotely "epic" or even interesting to me when I first played through it.

I think one of the biggest differences in WoW compared to FFXIV is how every single allied NPC is extremely passive and never really does anything. In FFXIV, your companions run dungeons with you, they actually do some work outside of it too, they aren't damsels in distress all the freaking time, the characters feel alive and they actually feel like characters that have a story. No such thing in WoW, even though it's *them* that are being featured all the time in trailers, stories and quests.

The biggest insult for example is the current SL raid.
You have these extremely powerful NPCs and they are basically always staying there saying: "is the room clear yet? Can I come out? Hello~~?"
I can't express how much that kills the mood. The very least they could do is something like they do when you do the last 2 bosses, instead, they basically taunt you for the first 8. Is there a reason? If so, I missed it.
It's the same with the Kyrian Archon. Goooooosh. I could keep going and going

Kadgar was probably the only (major) NPC in WoW where I actually felt like someone is doing something aside from me.

[Poppincaps]

A big problem with the above is also that all these other characters are supposedly way stronger than you and take credit for everything you do basically. In FFXIV you do most of the heavy lifting, less so in Shadowbringers, but it makes sense because you're the warrior of light and people revere you for that.

[Wrecktangle]

Also you are right they try to improve the presentation and personally I would argue that they actually have the better means to convey story than FFXIV. FFXIV is incredibly limited as far as conveying dialogue is concerned. The "engine" in general is the textbook definition of limited. So I personally find it actually sad that FFXIV manages to convey simple emotions with the very limited animations better than what Blizzard does with their attempts that make all the character look like their jaws constant unhinge while talking and gesticulating like they have a stroke right now. The size thing is an issue as well, especially now that they have the option to phase out other players that get too close to the NPC. That should be adapted as the standard means to keep NPC interactions immersive. As for the writing though, while they may have finally started to acknowledge the player character ingame, the way they tell the story and what kind of stories they tell still leaves alot to be desired. They also lack alot when it comes to underline scenes with the right music. FFXIV is downright manipulative in that regard, but it works better than always playing EpIc wArDrUmS #213412.

Agreed on all counts. Music is one area that FF14 absolutely crushes any and all competition.

How or where do you see that? Because I really can't. What are you looking at in specific?
I really can't say anything good about how WoW is being handled when it comes to story, storytelling or presentation. I'm not blaming only the writers for that, but also the game.
But even if I try to focus on the writing I can't really find a lot of "good" things that would make me say "they improved in the last 2 years".

In fact I actually think it got worse, especially in SL.
The Kyrian stuff must be one of, if not *the* worst parts people had to suffer through in terms of storytelling/presentation and even the covenant story itself is extremely one dimensional from what I could tell before I just couldn't take it anymore and switched.
The whole covenant is a big fat joke. The new patch trailer basically confirms it.
Thankfully, the others aren't that bad.

I don't know about the books and I like the cinematic trailers prior to each expansion and stuff.
But ingame? It's always pretty much a big mess. They haven't managed to tell a story ingame properly since forever. Everything is always extremely anticlimatic. Again, this is probably the games fault too but that just goes hand in hand.
For example, I can't say the whole maw thing was even remotely interesting and the presentation was an utter failure in my opinion.
Absolutely nothing during the whole prologue was even remotely "epic" or even interesting to me when I first played through it.

I think one of the biggest differences in WoW compared to FFXIV is how every single allied NPC is extremely passive and never really does anything. In FFXIV, your companions run dungeons with you, they actually do some work outside of it too, they aren't damsels in distress all the freaking time, the characters feel alive and they actually feel like characters that have a story. No such thing in WoW, even though it's *them* that are being featured all the time in trailers, stories and quests.

The biggest insult for example is the current SL raid.
You have these extremely powerful NPCs and they are basically always staying there saying: "is the room clear yet? Can I come out? Hello~~?"
I can't express how much that kills the mood. The very least they could do is something like they do when you do the last 2 bosses, instead, they basically taunt you for the first 8. Is there a reason? If so, I missed it.
It's the same with the Kyrian Archon. Goooooosh. I could keep going and going

Kadgar was probably the only (major) NPC in WoW where I actually felt like someone is doing something aside from me.

I actually find the overarching story generally decent in modern expansions (modern defined as Legion and onward for this discussion). There are many aspects where it's weak, in fact more than less, but I also believe that despite these shortcomings they're also leaps and bounds where we came from which was my point. The entire Suramar campaign was great and the few order halls I'm more knowledgeable on were also well received. While the BfA story was certainly weaker as a whole IMO, there were parts of it that were notable specifically surrounding Azshara and the shift of storytelling to focus more on PC alongside these NPCs. I think Legion really helped set up the idea that we aren't just nameless goons anymore and we're equivalent if not stronger than some of these NPCs. It's not like in FF14 where it's explicitly shown and said, but a little bit more subtle. I do agree that allied NPCs in WoW have been incredibly hit or miss, with your Khadgar example being a great one.

The NPCs in question the General and Prince are not stronger than us. We bested one of the other Generals in combat in a dungeon forcing them to flee. I'd be more curious if it's ever been called out as to whether we "raid" alone or if we're expected much like the WoL to amass allies out of thin air.